The field of the disclosure relates generally to fuel properties and, more specifically, to methods and systems for use in indicating and determining fuel properties using taggants.
Fuels that are used in combustion engines may exhibit different properties, such as energy density, stability, and lubricity. Such varying properties may affect the performance of a combustion engine as well as that of a system (e.g., a vehicle or an electrical generator) that includes a combustion engine. For example, lubricity may affect mechanical wear of engine components, and energy density may affect vehicle range. The properties of the fuel used in a combustion engine may be used to speculate about the performance (e.g., operating and/or maintenance characteristics) of the engine. However, at least some known fuel systems do not allow an operator to reliably determine such properties. Rather, tracking physical fuel properties may require manual record keeping beginning at the point of manufacture and throughout a supply chain.
Moreover, within the supply chain between the fuel manufacturer and the fuel user, fuels may be blended, and contaminants may be introduced. Accordingly, determining fuel properties based on information provided by the manufacturer(s) may be infeasible and/or impossible. As a result, the user may have no reliable source of information for use in predicting system performance.